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I went on a "survival weekend" with my dad last week. I say survival but I mean camping, but we did try and use as little as possible. We arrived saturday afternoon at the edge of a forest and then hiked a bit to the top where we set up base camp.

Once we'd done that we got started with some food, I got the fire going while my dad prepared the ingredients. After we had our slap up feed t'was time to get our shelters built. My dad made a simple A frame shelter while I hung my hammock and built a teepee above it.

In doing so I managed to cut half the forest down for the wood. Later that night I caught four beetles (although the first one I found was already dead), but the rest were all alive. The first one we roasted and joked about eating it, the second one I was planning on eating but I dropped it into the fire, the third one we actually did eat. I have to say not a lot of "meat" on a beetle, but it was actually very nice,

tasted like a mix between crab and lobster. So once we had a little snack of beetle it was time to have a bit of a kip. But half way through the night we woke up absolutely freezing and had to get the fire going and some sleeping bags were also in order. Once we finally got back to sleep after another midnight feast (I'm really starting to sound like a fatty). Then came the morning, which was one of the most fun and most adrenalin fueled mornings I ever had. I woke up at about 05:30 and saw a fox, which of course I chased after, but it got away.

Then I saw a squirell in the trees and after about an hour of following it around I heard another noise, it came from the ground so I thought it might be the fox I saw earlier. I saw something a bit bigger than a fox moving through the trees, and when I saw it I thought it was a wolf, that was the moment when I had quite a lot of adrenalin pumping through my body, especially when we were staring at each other waiting for one of use to make a move. Well, one of us did, me, but when I started hurrying back to base camp I actually realized that it was a wild boar. A couple of minutes later it also got to our base camp, but it just grunted twice and moved on.

After the boar incident we had a bit of a kip, had breakfast and then left. Oh and when we set off we got a flat tyre, nice. So we had to change the tyre in the heat of the day. Overall it was really fun and we're going back there this weekend to see if our shelters are still there and maybe try and catch that wild boar.

Careful about catching the boar.

Apart from poaching, you are more likely to get killed by it!

I used to go camping most weekends when I was younger and still do sometimes now.

One weekend, there were about 20 of us, all in our late teens early twenties.

We built a fire in a clearing just a little way inside the woods. It was dark and we saw some car headlights come towards us, stopping just outside of the woods.

It was a young couple, who had obviously decided to park up so they could, um, "sleep" in the car.

On seeing us come out of the woods, they drove off, spinning wheels.

We realised why.
It was Halloween. We had hung a guy by the neck, over the fire. One of my mates was posing with a long handled axe, as if he was going to chop the guys head off. He was still carrying this as we went towards them! Imagine a scene out of a horror film about satanists and you get the rough picture!

Don't worry Darrel, I wasn't serious about catching the boar, I know that it's really dangerous, and that I'll get really badly injured if I tried to catch one.

Where do you live Mr Herring?

This talk of beetles big enough to eat does not sound like my neck of the woods...

Marvo Marky wrote:Where do you live Mr Herring?

At the moment I live in hungary, so it must have been some sort of hungarian beetle thingy, there are so many beetles, I just don't know what it's called. I have a dual nationality, which means that I am both english and hungarian (that's why I sometimes live in England and sometimes in Hungary). Also while I'm bombarding you with interesting facts about myself, I'm also ambidextrouse. Neat, eh?

Sooo you are eating bugs without knowing what they are? I'm glad you are still around. Ever seen a poisen dart frog? Tiny little buggers but you certainly wouldn't want to eat one. Never mind that certain wild mushrooms will happily shut your system down within hours.

But seriously sounds like you had a blast. Used to do some of that back in the day. Now camping is getting a hotel room that doesn't have an air conditioner.

PS no reason to worry about the wolves. I was just doing some research and there is this guy in England who figured out the different wolf calls. If you hear wolves simply figure out what call they are making, usually if they make the initial call (which would be the case in this situation) it would be a, 'hey? any packs claiming this territory if not we are coming in!" All you have to do is give the proper response, "Yeah we are here and this is our territory and while we don't want a confrontation we will defend our land" They have found that for the most part the intruding pack will stay clear. Of course you have to do all this in howl, and not just any howl but the proper howl. One 'Woooooo! out of place and you may be saying...'lets rumble"

bmat wrote:PS no reason to worry about the wolves.... ....All you have to do is give the proper response... ....for the most part the intruding pack will stay clear.

I have to try that!